Hello all! Does anyone have either the TC-17E, TC-20E II, or TC-20E III that they use with the 70-200 VR2 lens? I would like to get a 20, but I have heard some people have had issues with it. Any experience with this would be great! Thanks :)

I just purchased the 20E III for my 70-200 and just love it.... no apparent IQ loss with the TC and the double focal lenght is terrific. My only sorrow is that it doesn't -ork with some of my other Nikon lenses but I did get it for the 70-200 and couldn't be happier....bob

I have both TC20II and TC17II on my 70-200 and both perform very well, although I prefer the TC17II as it offers better f-stop, or should I rather say - it's fully usable when You shot wide open with it. With TC20II You have to close at least one f-stop.

I have the TC-17E and love it. I used the older 2x I & II and I thought they worked well and never saw any issues and everyone seems to love the III.

The only thing with 1.7 and much more so with the 2.0 converters is when light drops and you are stopped down, AF starts to hunt and hand shake comes into play quickly. No big surprise, but many claim to have soft TCs when actually they are trying to handhold below 1/300 & 1/450 on DX and think every image will be sharp.

I do not have a TC-17 to compare and I try to avoid using the TC-20E III as much as possible but there are cases when 200 mm is just not enough and adding a 7 pound 200-400 mm to my already overweight setup is not an option. In those cases, being able to go 400 mm for a little weight and portability cost becomes a true savior and I rarely endup shooting at or below 340 mm, to the contrary, I often whish to be able to go beyond 400mm.

The D700 locked on to the subject right away, the D7000 hunted for a moment. The cameras were less than 10 ft apart. This was done at the same time of day, aprox 8 am in June, location FL coast, extreme overcast.

I had not used either the D7000 or the 400mm before that point so a learning curve occurred. I have used the D7000 and the 400mm/TC-17 combo since then and still think the TC-20 III would hunt more than my TC-17 does in low light but with either I dont really see a difference in quality so long as you have good technique.

If I ever have the need to use the TC-20 III again I will test it a little better, but at the moment I was still learning other things so a TC wasn't my primary problem.

Well I know that, but I was not worried about testing a TC. I was more worried about learning a new camera that I had not used before. The DX crop shouldn't affect AF performance, its just a bonus if your looking for more reach. I do not expect zippy but just telling what I found, I just tried to help.

So far the need for a TC-20 III has not come up again for me to test one out. If I ever do again I will test all aspects.

I will do a FF and DX test with the 70-200 and 400mm with both TC's along with some day and night testing on both. Both would have the same subject(s), one close and one distant, the only draw back is a possible sunrise/sunset shot may not have the exact same lighting if I am not fast enough changing out gear.

scoobysmak said:
The DX crop shouldn't affect AF performance, its just a bonus if your looking for more reach. I do not expect zippy but just telling what I found, I just tried to help.

I had the same experience.

I'm not sure what the technical reasons are, but TC's do seem to perform a bit slower on DX than with FX. Not much though. I notice it, but it has to be a very fast moving object like birds, animals, etc. It could just be tracking an object at (w TC1.7 & 70-200mm -bright light- f8 @1/1000) 300 vs 510 is going to be more difficult at the 510 that DX creates with a TC1.7. The TC20 seemed much slower and that is why I choose the 1.7 as well.

I spoke to others that experienced that with DX as well but that was before the new AF motor/design in the D7000 which seems to be about the same as the D300/D700 (shared AF design) and much better than the D200, D5xxx series. I also thought the D700 was faster compared to the D300 even though they shared the same AF design.

Either way, I think there it says something more about the AF designs than the TCs performance or particular glass you attach it too.

connie64 said:
I was looking more for the "median" of the lens i guess

I just shot my first serious event this past weekend with my 70-200 VR2 and the TC2iii.
Here is one pic of it in action. I did not notice any degradation of image quality, even wide open at f/5.6. Though I still stopped down some to f/7.1 for some shots as I had enough light. I love the combo.